The
Elephant in Rome

"The elephant is the largest of them all, and in intelligence
approaches the nearest to man. It understands the language of
its country, it obeys commands, and it remembers all the duties
which it has been taught. It is sensible alike of the pleasures
of love and glory, and, to a degree that is rare among men even,
possesses notions of honesty, prudence, and equity; it has a
religious respect also for the stars, and a veneration for the
sun and the moon."

Pliny, Natural History (VIII.1)

Romans first encountered the elephant in 280 BC. Pyrrhus had
transported twenty of the beasts to Italy by ship and, at the
Battle of Heraclea, the unfamiliar animals routed the Roman cavalry;
"their horses, before they got near the animals, were terrified
and ran away with their riders" (Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus,
XVII.3). The next year at Asculum, there was another Pyrrhic
victory, "the greatest havoc was wrought by the furious
strength of the elephants, since the valour of the Romans was
of no avail in fighting them, but they felt that they must yield
before them as before an onrushing billow or a crashing earthquake,
and not stand their ground only to die in vain, or suffer all
that is most grievous without doing any good at all" (XXI.7).

In 218 BC, Hannibal crossed the Alps with thirty-seven elephants
and defeated the Romans at Trebbia. Indeed, had not a wounded
elephant thrown the others into confusion, the Roman losses would
have been even greater (Zonaras, Epitome of History, VIII.13, who also relates that
the soldiers fought from towers on the backs of the elephants).

Whereas the Greeks and Carthaginians used elephants mainly
in war, the Romans used them primarily for spectacle, the first
time in 275 BC, when those that had been captured from Pyrrhus
were displayed in triumph. In 55 BC, when Pompey dedicated his
theater, the events in the Circus included venationes.
Plutarch says that five hundred lions were killed, but there
was "above all, an elephant fight, a most terrifying spectacle"
(Life of Pompey, LII.4). Cicero, who was present, wrote
to a friend that there were two animal hunts a day, which lasted
for five days. "The last day was that of the elephants,
and on that day the mob and crowd were greatly impressed, but
manifested no pleasure. Indeed the result was a certain compassion
and a kind of feeling that that huge beast has a fellowship with
the human race" (ad Familiares, VII.1).

In his Natural History, Pliny records the same poignant
event (VIII.7.20). Twenty or so elephants were cruelly killed
and, "when they had lost all hope of escape tried to gain
the compassion of the crowd by indescribable gestures of entreaty,
deploring their fate with a sort of wailing, so much to the distress
of the public that they forgot the general and his munificence
carefully devised for their honour, and bursting into tears rose
in a body and invoked curses on the head of Pompey."

Seneca, too, refers to the slaughter in De Brevitate Vitae
(XIII),

"...does it serve any useful purpose to know that Pompey
was the first to exhibit the slaughter of eighteen elephants
in the Circus, pitting criminals against them in a mimic battle?
He, a leader of the state and one who, according to report, was
conspicuous among the leaders of old for the kindness of his
heart, thought it a notable kind of spectacle to kill human beings
after a new fashion. Do they fight to the death? That is not
enough! Are they torn to pieces? That is not enough! Let them
be crushed by animals of monstrous bulk! Better would it be that
these things pass into oblivion lest hereafter some all-powerful
man should learn them and be jealous of an act that was nowise
human. O, what blindness does great prosperity cast upon our
minds! When he was casting so many troops of wretched human beings
to wild beasts born under a different sky, when he was proclaiming
war between creatures so ill matched, when he was shedding so
much blood before the eyes of the Roman people, who itself was
soon to be forced to shed more. He then believed that he was
beyond the power of Nature. But later this same man, betrayed
by Alexandrine treachery, offered himself to the dagger of the
vilest slave, and then at last discovered what an empty boast
his surname was."

The elephants, writes Cassius Dio, "were pitied by the
people when, after being wounded and ceasing to fight, they walked
about with their trunks raised toward heaven, lamenting so bitterly
as to give rise to the report that they did so not by mere chance,
but were crying out against the oaths in which they had trusted
when they crossed over from Africa, and were calling upon Heaven
to avenge them" (XXXIX.38).

And so they were: Seven years later, Pompey was stabbed to
death in Egypt.

"For they [the Ethiopians] state that there are to be seen
in their country snakes so great in size that they not only eat both oxen
and bulls and other animals of equal bulk, but even join issue in battle
with the elephants, and by intertwining their coil about the elephants' legs
they prevent the natural movement of them and by rearing their necks above
their trunks they put their heads directly opposite the eyes of the
elephants, and sending forth, by reason of the fiery nature of their eyes,
brilliant flashes like lightning, they first blind their sight and then
throw them to the ground and devour of the flesh of their conquered foes."

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History (III.37.9)

Pliny goes on to relate the natural antipathy of the Indian
elephant and the serpent, "the serpents also being of so
large a size that they easily encircle the elephants in their
coils and fetter them with a twisted knot. In this duel both
combatants die together, and the vanquished elephant in falling
crushes with its weight the snake coiled round it."

This image, which is in the Carthage Museum, is from a large
mosaic depicting animals being hunted and captured for the amphitheater.
Here, an elephant, its wrinkled skin represented by cross-hatching,
is being cruelly bitten by a boa that has entwined itself around
the hapless beast.

In 153 BC, there also was a measure of revenge, as Appian
relates in his account of the wars in Spain. The Romans had taken
elephants right up to the wall of a besieged town when

"one of the elephants was struck on the head with a large
falling stone, when he became savage, uttered a loud cry, turned
upon his friends, and began to destroy everything that came in
his way, making no longer any distinction between friend and
foe. The other elephants, excited by his cries, all began to
do the same, trampling the Romans under foot, wounding them and
tossing them this way and that. This is always the way with elephants
when they are frightened. Then they take everyone for foes; wherefore
some people call them the common enemy, on account of their fickleness."

Roman History (VI. 46)

Livy, too, speaks of this uncertainty in recounting the battle
of Canusium (209 BC) between Claudius Marcellus and Hannibal.

"...these animals cannot be depended upon. Not only the
men who first attacked them, but every soldier within reach hurled
his javelin at them as they galloped back into the Carthaginian
ranks, where they caused much more destruction than they had
caused amongst the enemy. They dashed about much more recklessly
and did far greater damage when driven by their fears, than when
directed by their drivers. Where the line was broken by their
charge, the Roman standards at once advanced, and the broken
and demoralised enemy was put to rout without much fighting."

History of Rome (XXVII.14)

Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, writes that
the elephant is terrified of a squealing pig, which is how the
Romans put to flight the elephants of Pyrrhus. Indeed, when Antigonus
II (Gonatas), the grandson of Antigonus I (Cyclops), was besieging
Megara, pigs were released, their squeals assured by the fact
that the unfortunate creatures were smeared with oil and set
afire. Pliny, too, tells of the ability of a squealing pig to
startle an elephant, and Procopius, in The Gothic War,
relates how a war elephant approached the wall of a besieged
town, looming over it, only to have a squealing pig thrust in
its face, which panicked the beast.

There were more murderous ways to dispatch an elephant than
to frighten it with a pig, as Vegetius
relates in De Re Militari (III.24).

"Many expedients have been used against them. In Lucania
a centurion cut off the trunk of one with his sword. Two soldiers
armed from head to foot in a chariot drawn by two horses, also
covered with armor, attacked these beasts with lances of great
length. They were secured by their armor from the archers on
the elephants and avoided the fury of the animals by the swiftness
of their horses. Foot soldiers completely armored, with the addition
of long iron spikes fixed on their arms, shoulders and helmets,
to prevent the elephant from seizing them with his trunk, were
also employed against them.

But among the ancients, the velites usually engaged them.
They were young soldiers, lightly armed, active and very expert
in throwing their missile weapons on horseback. These troops
kept hovering round the elephants continually and killed them
with large lances and javelins. Afterwards, the soldiers, as
their apprehensions decreased, attacked them in a body and, throwing
their javelins together, destroyed them by the multitude of wounds.
Slingers with round stones from the fustibalus and sling killed
both the men who guided the elephants and the soldiers who fought
in the towers on their backs. This was found by experience to
be the best and safest expedient. At other times on the approach
of these beasts, the soldiers opened their ranks and let them
pass through. When they got into the midst of the troops, who
surrounded them on all sides, they were captured with their guards
unhurt.

Large balistae, drawn on carriages by two horses or mules,
should be placed in the rear of the line, so that when the elephants
come within reach they may be transfixed with the darts. The
balistae should be larger and the heads of the darts stronger
and broader than usual, so that the darts may be thrown farther,
with greater force and the wounds be proportioned to the bodies
of the beasts. It was proper to describe these several methods
and contrivances employed against elephants, so that it may be
known on occasion in what manner to oppose those prodigious animals."